Premium economy is more than just a larger seat with better recline, more legroom and an extra glass of bubbles on the way. It can actually be a strategic masterpiece, even a stroke of genius if you know what you’re doing. Why? Airlines typically only allow one cabin upgrades, and the next cabin up from premium is flat bed business. If you have points, upgrade certificates or frequent flyer luck on your side, these deals can be your ticket to business class for less.
Here’s how to book a great bargain to Australia and earn a bunch of points in the process…
British Airways has a long standing fare that’s rarely mentioned, bringing a real bargain for Sydney flights. The fare is predominantly out of German cities, and routes via London and Singapore on British Airways metal – aka British Airways planes – the whole way.
This is particularly beneficial if you happen to have Avios, or a British AIrways upgrade certificate, which can help turn these into business class, at least part of the way. Either way, it’s a great price for relative comfort to Australia.
The best deals are available from: Dusseldorf, Stuttgart or Munich. Barcelona is also available for a bit more. If you can swing it, the £1700 business class deals out of Scandinavia are typically worth the added expense, but if this is the upper range of the budget, they’re a big improvement over coach.
The Dates You Can Fly To Australia
These deals are available with scattered availability in February, March, May and June, and then excellent availability in September, late October and November. Stick to departures on Monday or Tuesday to find the lowest prices. Wednesday departures are also ok in the second half the year…
A Sunday night stay makes it easiest to find these deals, so plan on staying in Australia for at least a week. If it’s nearly 24 hours to get there, you might as well…
Booking is quite easy, and can be done directly with British Airways, here or here.
If you have Avios to use, look first for business class reward flights on RewardFlightFinder.com or SeatSpy.com, as if you’d be paying entirely with points. If there are seats available in business class using points, they’re available for upgrade from your premium economy ticket using points as well. You just call into BA to book your upgrade with Avios. Here’s a complete guide to BA upgrades.
If you have a GUF voucher – if you don’t know what it means, you don’t have one – then just call in to book, so that they can process the return upgrade for the whole journey for two, at time of booking.
Here are 10 things you’ve absolutely gotta do on your first trip to Sydney, and a 48 hour guide chock full of amazing food, coffee and other recommendations. Enjoy : )
The only problem with this strategy is there are almost never any BA reward seats available in business class to Sydney unless you book 355 days ahead.
That’s somewhat true for an entire round trip on one sitting, but you’ll often find very good avail on at least one of the segments, and can set alerts for the second. Aka London to Singapore can be very good avail, as can SIN-SYD. You just need to take what you can get, as you get it.